Executive Needs to Faithfully Observe and Respect Congressional Enactments of the Law Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. POE of Texas. I thank the chairman for yielding time.

Mr. Chairman, the Constitution and the laws of the land are not mere suggestions for any President, whether it is this President, future Presidents, or Presidents before us; but this administration, for some reason, continues to enforce laws that Congress passes and that have been signed by other Presidents.

Despite the constitutional phrase that the executive will ``faithfully execute the law,'' the administration ignores the ``faithful'' part. He has been unfaithful in many cases of executing the laws of the land. The former constitutional law professor in the White House said he will rule by pen and phone.

Whatever happened to ruling by the Constitution? I guess we don't use that anymore.

If the administration doesn't like a law, the administration ignores the law. If the administration wants to change a law rather than to go to Congress and let us work with the President to amend the law, the President just issues an edict and changes the law.

This has created a constitutional nightmare, a constitutional crisis--constitutional chaos--because we never know what is going to happen with the law of the land. Is it a mere suggestion or is it in concrete?

This is a democracy, not a kingdom. The United States President is not supposed to be an emperor, and not supposed to rule down from Mount Sinai about what he thinks the law should be.

We disagree on whether the President has abused that power or not. We will disagree on future Presidents. So what do we do about that?

Well, let's go to court. Let's resolve those issues in a court of law, where the Constitution and the law of the land is followed, Mr. Chairman.

That is all this bill does. It gets us in the courtroom. It allows us to make our case, they make their case on any particular issue, and then we will let an impartial judge make the decision.

I support the legislation.

And that's just the way it is.

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